Albena Bakratcheva has chosen the specific American sense of place as the lens through which to view the artistic achievement as well as the philosophical and religious ideas of the New England Transcendentalists, to reconsider the heritage of several contemporary American literary figures, and to follow the reception of Transcendentalist works in Bulgaria; the same approach is taken in her reflections on the literary and social dimensions of postmodernism and contemporary globalization.
The author pays due attention to the specificity of the term “transcendental” in its American context, emphasizing the significance of the prefix “trans-” as a link between the New England thinkers’ inspirations and the dreams and intentions of the first settlers in the New World and of the Founding Fathers. At the same time, Bakratcheva aptly supports the claim that the transcendental be regarded as transatlantic. Finally, she discovers in the Transcendentalists’ general attitude, especially in Thoreau, the original Kantian notion of transcendental synthesis as organizing and comprehending totalities.
The unique sense of genius loci is seen as decisive for the world outlook and artistic horizon of the New England writers. Perceived by them intuitively and even mystically, genius loci provides the Transcendentalists with an essential advantage over the worldliness of their British counterparts in terms of their scope of intellectual and artistic sensitivity. The specificity of Transcendentalist ideas is further supported by juxtaposing the Transcendentalists with those American contemporaries following the impulses of Romanticism, Poe in particular. This is accomplished by contrasting the Platonic flavor of the Transcendentalist synthetic idea of beauty with Poe’s conviction regarding the self-sufficiency of beauty. Another difference between the two trends is identified in the primary role of principles in Poe’s views of artistic creativity versus Emerson’s reliance on poetic inspiration.
The Call of the Green manages in a unique wayto delineate one of the most typical characteristics of the American world outlook and of American literature - the identification with the genius loci. In this treatise, a European approach can very easily be perceived, one which not only allows it to stand out from the “native” American research in the field, but also to bridge a gap in Bulgarian and European American studies. Bakratcheva’s work combines in a harmonious way elegant literary criticism with profound philosophical analysis. It contributes to a further rapprochement and mutual understanding between literature and philosophy. Last but not least, the brilliant English of this text not only assures it access to worldwide American studies, but makes it an example for any scholar in the field of the humanities.